


Under the Missing Toe

by uisceB



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alex tries to make puns, Astra is grumpy as always, Colloquialisms are hard, F/F, Fluff, Halloween, That's it, general danvers monthly, it's just fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 13:48:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12459075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uisceB/pseuds/uisceB
Summary: General Danvers Monthly Prompt: HalloweenIn which Astra decorates Kara's apartment for a Halloween party because she wants to, not because it's Alex's favorite holiday. Obviously.





	Under the Missing Toe

Kara was skilled at carving pumpkins with her laser vision; Astra was skilled at becoming frustrated, then enraged, then blowing up the entire pumpkin altogether.

“Aunt Astra, what have we said about your self control?” Kara asked patiently as Astra exploded her third one, its contents splattering all over her niece’s kitchen.

“To have some,” Astra grumbled obediently.

“That’s right,” Kara said calmly, reaching for a knife and handing it to her. “Maybe try carving with a knife instead.”

“Yeah, give the diabolical Kryptonian a weapon, that’s a good idea,” drawled a voice behind them.

Astra looked over her shoulder to see Kara’s sister, who had previously been hanging miniature skeletons along the door frame, hop off the ladder and come to the counter to drop off the excess roll of tape she hadn’t needed.

“If I happen to be feeling diabolical, this knife will be the least of your problems, Alexandra,” Astra told her coolly, knowing how much the human hated the use of her full name.

“I’ll keep that in mind when I talk to J’onn about how your parole is going,” Alex returned smoothly. She turned to Kara and tugged affectionately on her ponytail. “Hey. I’m gonna go buy up the liquor store for tonight’s festivities, you good here?”

“As long as Aunt Astra stops declaring war on the Jack O’lanterns, we should be fine,” Kara said.

“Okay. See you tonight.”

She turned her head to Astra, then paused, looking her over appraisingly. Astra locked eyes with her, ignoring the slight lurch in her stomach that seemed to always flare up when being regarded so closely by this particular human.

“Is something wrong?” she demanded sharply.

Alex held her gaze for a moment, then looked down to her mouth, her chin, her hair…and then she reached forward. Astra froze in surprise, flinching as the human’s fingers curled in her hair, pulling a little. Her heart started to thud against her chest with almost frightening force.

Then the human smirked at her, plucking something from her head, and held up the piece of orange slime she’d retrieved from it.

“You’ve got pumpkin guts in your hair,” she informed her, wiping her hand on a dish towel. “Might want to clean that off before the party.”

Without another look at Astra, she strode to the door, and left her and Kara with an annoyingly careless air about her.

Astra scowled, absently poking her knife into the side of her new, presently intact pumpkin. She became quickly aware that Kara was watching her do so.

“Yes?” she prompted sharply without looking at her.

“Well…Alex is right, you really do have a lot of exploded pumpkin in your hair,” Kara hazarded.

“And?”

“…Don’t you wanna go…wash that out…or something?”

“I will wash my hair when I’m good and ready, not just because that insufferable _human_ told me to,” Astra snapped, poking her knife into the pumpkin with a little more force.

Kara sighed, turning back to her own pumpkin. “Alright,” she said. “But you know, Aunt Astra, Halloween’s supposed to be fun. You could stand to lighten up a little.”

“It was my understanding that Halloween was meant to be terrifying,” Astra argued darkly. “Although, the ridiculous things humans are afraid of—what, women wearing pointy hats? Bones of dead people? Sheets with…eyes…or something?” She shook her head. “Now, when _I_ was traveling the galaxy, I saw things that are _truly_ terrifying…”

“Aunt Astra,” Kara interrupted patiently. “What have we said about you being elitist?”

“To not be,” Astra grumbled.

“That’s right.”

Astra sighed. “I suppose I just don’t understand the use in throwing a _party_ over all this,” she said. “The decorations are non-biodegradable, the candy is made in environmentally unsafe factories…”

“It’s _fun,”_ Kara laughed, nudging her shoulder. “I promise, once the party starts, you’ll have a good time. I know it’s kind of silly, but I like it. Alex got me all into it when I first got to Earth—it’s like her favorite holiday.”

Astra paused in the absent poking of her pumpkin. “Is it?” she asked, making sure to keep her voice completely level, and her eyes fixed on her work.

“Oh yeah,” Kara said, then shuddered like she was reliving an unpleasant memory. “She’s all about the blood and gore. And fake spiders, haunted mansions, horror movies…this is probably her favorite day of the year.”

Astra pressed her lips together, and began carving her pumpkin with a little more finesse.

*

She was not aware that _she_ was expected to dress up.

“The costumes aren’t just for children?” she asked Kara in alarm when her niece informed her of this.

“Nah, everybody likes to dress up!” Kara said cheerfully. “That’s half the fun right there!”

Astra was once again reminded that her idea of _fun_ didn’t always match up with her niece’s these days.

“Well what are you being?” she asked carefully.

“The Tin Man from _Wizard of Oz,”_ Kara said.

Astra didn’t know what that meant, but it did sound appropriately nightmarish, if nothing else.

“Are James and the rest of them all dressing up as well?” she asked.

“Of course! James is dressing up as Supergirl.”

Astra stared at her in disbelief. “You’re serious?” she asked. “Your boyfriend is going as…you?”

“Yeah, we had to have Winn make a suit just for him—mine’s too small. He looks surprisingly good in a skirt, though—he’s got great legs.”

“Well I refuse to take part in this,” Astra said stiffly.

“Aw, come on, Aunt Astra—you used to dress up with me all the time on Krypton when I was little! You used to dress up as different animals you’d seen in your travels, and re-enacted stories you’d heard…”

“Yes, I did those things when you were _little,”_ Astra said, feeling both embarrassment and warmth at the memory. “To _entertain_ you. _This_ is just…”

_“Fun,”_ Kara said firmly. 

“Well, regardless, I don’t have a costume,” Astra pointed out haughtily.

“I actually thought of that,” Kara said. “And I figured you might not be super into dressing up, _but_ I also know you have a propensity for wearing black body suits, soooo…”

She dug around in her closet, and pulled out a black body suit with some kind of white pattern across it.

“Is that meant to be the skeletal system?” Astra asked critically.

Kara looked at it proudly. “Ta-da!” she sang. “Yeah, see, it’s basically like a cotton version of what you used to wear, only now it looks like you’re a skeleton! At least, in the dark, kind of.”

Astra took it, looking it over doubtfully. “I suppose that of my options, it isn’t… _terrible,”_ she said.

“That’s the spirit. You should go try it on—people are gonna start showing up soon, and you don’t want to be that one weirdo without a costume.”

*

Kara was quite a social butterfly, Astra realized as more and more people came filtering through the door. Filtering, then flooding. She had made extra room by getting rid of the partition between her room and the rest of the apartment, and lifting the bed up to press upward against the wall, tying it and decorating the life out of it so that it looked like a mass of cobwebs guarded by a hooded monster with a scythe. Well, actually, it was Astra who suggested it, and Kara had beamed, ecstatic that she had decided to really get in the spirit of things.

Astra was not in the spirit of things, but she was glad her work was appreciated—both by her niece, and seemingly the rest of the guests who wandered around.

In fact, the entire apartment was decorated to perfection—the best imitation of a “haunted mansion” that Astra could produce with only a small understanding of what that should look like. When Kara had gone to take a shower, she had been nearly bowled over with joy when she came back out and saw the remarkable job Astra had done. She’d been gleeful enough that she hadn’t even said, “Aunt Astra, what have we said about you using my credit card without asking?” when Astra informed her that she went to that “Party City” place and purchased nearly everything that caught her eye.

“Alex is going to love all this!” Kara had exclaimed—to herself, because obviously Astra wouldn’t care about that.

Having said that, Alexandra was not here. She had come up briefly to drop off the rather troubling amount of alcohol she had purchased, but received a call from J’onn soon after, begging her to come help re-wrangle an escaped Fort Rozz convict, and had needed to leave immediately. Kara had offered to come help but Alex had ordered her very seriously that her foremost obligation was to the Halloween party guests. For tonight and tonight only, Supergirl’s entire focus needed to be completely devoted to this absolutely inane celebration.

So it was annoying that Alex was not here. If it was—as she heard many a guest say—one of the “coolest” Halloween parties and most “badass” decorating they had ever seen, then Alex, who Kara had told her loved Halloween the most out of all the human holidays, should be here to see it. Simply so Astra could rub her nose in it.

She leaned against the wall, watching with disinterest as the party got more and more out of control. The music thumped lowly—not all that loud, but a heavy, distant pounding that seemed to hold the entire party together. It was dark in here, with the lights dimmed and covered by a heavy netting of fake cobwebs—most of the lights came from the decorations themselves, and the Jack O’lanterns she and Kara had spent so much time making.

Astra was vaguely irritated to find that no one seemed to notice them all that much—hours of careful crafting, and hers were not _abysmal,_ though admittedly her niece’s were much better. But still. These guests could at least go over and appreciate them the way they had appreciated the rest of the apartment.

She tensed slightly as she detected footsteps headed specifically for her, and wheeled, grabbing her potential enemy by the throat and pushing her against the wall.

Alex sputtered at her—a laugh, Astra realized, rather than real shock.

She loosened her grip on the human’s throat, but didn’t let go completely, an annoyed warning for her not to try to sneak up on her again.

Alex just grinned. “A little high-strung, are we?” she asked loudly over the thump of the bass, and the buzz of human voices all around them. “Halloween getting to you?”

Astra shook her head in irritation. “I knew it was you,” she said, then spoke a little louder when she remembered human hearing was not as good as hers. “You have a particular scent, and a specific cadence to the way you walk.”

“Is that right,” Alex said, eyebrows going up in amusement. “You knew it was me, and you decided to attack anyway?”

“Of course.”

Alex’s amusement slipped into something a little more devilish, and that uncomfortable lurch in Astra’s stomach returned. She let go of the human, allowing her to massage her throat soothingly.

“Your sweater is hideous,” Astra commented.

Alex looked down at it. “Freddy Krueger,” she said, as if that explained something. “I was hoping to do all the burn scars on the face, and the knife fingers and all that, but I didn’t have time after J’onn called me in. So just the sweater. I kind of had to half-ass it this year.” She looked around. “Kara did a great job decorating, though, this place looks amazing.”

“Kara did the bare minimum,” Astra informed her haughtily. “The majority of this was me.”

Alex gaze went back to her, eyebrows raising again. _“You_ did all this?” she asked. 

“Kara told me it was your favorite holiday.”

This time, Alex’s eyebrows were practically to her hair line.

“That is—she told me to do a good _job_ because it was your favorite holiday,” Astra amended quickly. “She inferred I was meant to pay particular attention to all this. Not…‘half-ass’ it.”

Alex tilted her head, seeming caught somewhere between surprise, suspicion—and amusement at Astra’s use of the phrase “half-ass.” She always seemed to enjoy it when Astra used human colloquialisms, and not even in a condescending way. True amusement, a soft kind of enjoyment that Astra hoped the human had used with Kara when she first got to Earth. She knew colloquialisms were difficult to get the hang of, but Alex was always surprisingly patient, and even kind, when it came to hearing a Kryptonian fumble one out.

She was otherwise irritating beyond belief, but it was times like those that were a nice exception.

But this time, Alex’s attention seemed to be on a different word.

_“‘Inferred?’”_ she asked curiously. “So Kara didn’t specifically instruct you to dress this place up to the nines?”

“Well, I—“ Astra fumbled a little, trying to pull words from the air that her mind wasn’t quite producing.

Alex came to her rescue though, quickly offering, “Well, it looks amazing, regardless. Seriously. Amazing.”

She cleared her throat quickly, craning her neck to look toward the window. “And your, um…” She began making her way toward it, and Astra felt compelled to follow her, trying to catch the rest of what she was saying. They stopped by the row of Jack O’lanterns Kara had placed on the window sill.

“The Jack O’lanterns look…” Alex said, appraising them. “…Well, I mean. Yours are still a _little_ wonky…”

_Wonky?_

“…but I think it adds to the look,” Alex finished. “You must’ve really caught the Halloween bug, I mean, you’re even…” Her eyes roamed up and down Astra’s figure, and Astra’s stomach lurched again, until she remembered Alex must be looking at her costume.

“It feels like _I’ve_ got the x-ray vision thing going on, looking at you,” the human finished. 

It came out a little awkward, and this time it was Astra’s turn to cock her head in amusement. “And do you like what you see, Alexandra?” she asked, and that lurch came tumbling back the moment the words came out of her mouth.

Alex swallowed. “Well, I mean it’s not…” She cast her eyes over the costume, gaze zeroing in on Astra’s collarbone.

“Your clavicle’s a little crooked, but…” she joked, and reached forward, brushing her hand over it. Astra felt suddenly much too warm as the human tugged her costume a little bit to angle the bones more accurately. 

“There,” she said, smoothing it out. She pressed her lips together, and looked back up into Astra’s eyes. “Perfect.”

Astra breathed out a small laugh, because she wasn’t sure what else to do, but found strange comfort in the fact that there was a redness creeping across Alex’s cheeks that threatened on matching the red stripes of her sweater.

“I’m always happy to live up to the expectations of the human expert on alien physiology,” Astra said, and Alex just got redder, but with an exceedingly wide smile. 

“Well, between that and this whole place, you’re living up to—and surpassing—all kinds of expectations,” she said. “Or…you know. It’s…honestly, this is the coolest. The decorations, and everything…” 

She looked up above them and snorted a little. “You hung _body parts_ from the ceiling—is that a _foot_ above us?” she laughed.

“I ran out of room to put them elsewhere, but it didn’t seem too out of character for one of your Halloween murderers to collect and display body parts in this manner,” Astra said.

“Good instincts,” Alex laughed, peering up closer. She pointed. “I think our poor guy’s foot is missing a toe there.”

Astra looked up as well, and frowned. “I was in such a hurry to get everything, I should have paid more attention—they shouldn’t have sold me something damaged,” she mumbled.

“It’s okay—kind of just adds to the whole vibe,” Alex said. She laughed all of a sudden, cocking her head to look at it more closely.

“What’s funny?” Astra asked her.

“No, I was just—so, Kara and I used to get invited to Christmas parties sometimes, and there’s this whole…this thing people do with mistletoe.”

“Mistletoe?”

“Yeah, it’s a plant people hang from the ceiling, and if you’re under it, you’re supposed to kiss whoever’s under it with you. And it’s just funn—instead of _mistletoe_ we’ve got a _missing toe_ , it’s just…” 

She broke off, clearing her throat, and looking back down at Astra. “It was just funny in my head, sorry,” she muttered.

Astra’s gaze fell traitorously to Alex’s lips, and she struggled to bring it back up to Alex’s eyes.

“Well, if it’s…tradition,” she hazarded.

“No—it’s. Well. No, it’s the _mistletoe_ thing, and it’s for Christmas parties or whatever—and ours is a _missing toe_ , and it’s Halloween, so there’s no _actual_ tradition…plus it’d be…” She gestured between the two of them. “I mean, _us._ So. You know, we’d…it’d be…us.”

“Right,” Astra said, trying to hide the disappointment in her voice—trying to lie to herself and pretend that she was somehow _surprised_ to find that she was disappointed. She knew that she and Alex were in constant competition to sling the best insult at one another, but she wasn’t stupid. Most of hers of late were meant to impress Alex with her cleverness, not actually harm her, and she had dared to hope that maybe Alex’s insults toward her were designed with similar intentions.

But if Alex’s objection to this whole…missing toe…tradition…(or _mistletoe?_ Astra was still struggling to understand exactly what Alex had been bumbling out) was anything to go by, then she had obviously misjudged. 

“On the other hand,” Alex said quickly, “I mean, we could always make a _new_ tradition.Y’know. Might be kind of funny.”

Astra looked at her curiously, still trying to catch on to what Alex was saying.

“You mean that you think people _should_ kiss under the mistletoe?”

“Well—the missing toe.”

“The _missing toe,”_ Astra corrected herself. “I apologize, I’m afraid I still don’t quite understand what you’re—“

She broke off as Alex took a small step forward so that they were very much sharing the same space. The human’s gaze dipped and lingered at her lips, and Astra felt that wave of heat wash over her again. It was so rare that she was ever this physically close to anyone anymore—she couldn’t actually remember the last time she had been.

With anyone else, she’d have shoved them away, but this was Alex—Alex who loved to taunt her, to try to get a rise out of her, who drew attention to exploded pumpkin insides in her hair, and frankly, Astra wanted to be endlessly closer to her. And if the laws of the missing toe were accurate, then this closeness must demand a reaction to Alex’s invasion of her space.

Trusting—or daring—this tradition, non-tradition, or whatever it was, Astra leaned in, curling her fingers in that hideous Freddy Krueger sweater to pull Alex in and kiss her.

She must have understood the laws correctly, because Alex pressed naturally into it, lips warm, and soft, and inviting under hers. They held the kiss for a long moment before Astra slowly backed her up against the wall, sliding her hands down to pin her at the hips. Their one kiss turned into several, Alex deepening it, teasing with her tongue, hands coming up to twist in Astra’s hair. It sent firecrackers sparking all across Astra’s skin, that tumbling lurch in her stomach suddenly a playful, dizzying pull that made her press all the harder into Alex, if only to keep herself from spinning out of control.

There was so much heat between them, it took Astra a moment to realize that, actually, the heat wasn’t _between_ them, it was _beside_ them—Alex had flailed an arm out and accidentally knocked one of the Jack O’lanterns over…which triggered the one beside it, and the one beside that, and quite suddenly, the curtains were on fire.

All of a sudden, the fire alarm blared, and Astra clapped her hands to her ears in pain. A girl in the crowd squealed as water sprayed down on them from the ceiling, hitting all the people, and missing the actual fire completely.

Panicked jostling and pushing and running hit them at all sides as people rushed to get out of the burning apartment as the flames caught the wall and swelled.

“Get them out!” Astra heard Kara shout to Alex before her niece dove out her window, crashing back inside in full Supergirl regalia to blow the flames out with her freeze breath.

Somewhat needlessly dramatic, Astra thought, especially as one of the boys exiting the room looked back and uttered in amazement, “How did _Supergirl_ know to get here so fast?”

The chaos disappeared almost as quickly as it had begun, leaving Astra, Kara, and James—the two Supergirls—alone in their wrecked apartment, food and drinks and damaged decorations on the floor, tattered curtains, and a scorched wall. And the sprinklers were still going. James swung at them to try to get them to turn off, his dress and cape absolutely drenched.

“What _happened?”_ Kara wondered irritatedly, apparently becoming fed up with the water because she froze the sprinklers as well.

“I saw two idiots making out by the Jack O’lanterns,” James said, shaking his head. “Bet you anything one of them knocked into something and started the whole thing.”

Kara sighed frustratedly, then looked over at Astra. “Sorry, Aunt Astra,” she said sympathetically. “I know you worked really hard on those Jack O’lanterns. That sucks someone wrecked them like that.”

Astra shook her head quickly, finding that she didn’t have any words left in her brain.

*

The doorbell ringing at 8:30 the following morning had all three of them jump simultaneously in alarm at the island counter.

“Were you expecting anyone?” Kara asked James, who shook his head, finishing his last bite of cereal.

Kara squinted at the door, then got up with some confusion to open it.

“Alex,” she said in surprise. “Why aren’t you at the DEO? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Alex said. “I’ve got the day off. For the first time in…three weeks, I think.”

“Oh my god,” Kara said in surprise. “Well—wow, I’d love to hang out with you, but I’ve gotta be at Catco in like twenty minutes…”

“I’m, um…here for Astra, actually,” Alex said.

Astra stiffened, becoming uncharacteristically self-conscious as both Kara and James turned to look at her.

“Why?” Kara asked finally.

“I don’t know,” Alex said, shrugging awkwardly. “I just thought maybe we could…go for a walk or something.”

_“Why?”_ Kara repeated, sounding suspicious.

“I don’t know,” Alex muttered again, but she looked in at Astra, lips pressed together. “Do you want to?” she asked uncertainly.

Astra blinked, that self-consciousness coming back ten-fold, and she nodded, getting to her feet and padding over to the door, avoiding the left-over debris from last night’s festivities.

Kara looked at them in deep puzzlement. “Is ‘going for a walk’ a euphemism for ‘fighting to the death?’” she asked critically. “Because I really need you two to start getting along better.”

“I think we’ll be fine, little one,” Astra told her with a small, hesitant smile as she looked at Alex.

Kara still looked suspicious. “Well, okay. But no killing or maiming each other while I’m at work. Got it?”

They both nodded obediently, and then Alex led the way to the stairwell, Astra trailing in her wake.

*

It was surprisingly brisk outside—the first day of November seemed to be starting winter early, and the breeze winding through the park only emphasized that. Astra didn’t feel the cold too badly, but she smiled a little bit at the way Alex had both hands jammed in the pockets of her leather jacket, breath coming out in small white puffs as they walked up the hill.

“So,” the human started to say, not looking at her as they went along. “Last night.”

Astra looked at her, waiting for more to that sentence, but Alex’s gaze was fixed more or less at her own feet, and she didn’t seem to have much else to say. Astra felt her heart threaten to sink, afraid that Alex might be about to say that it was a mistake, that they never should have done a thing like that. Which was probably true.

“Yes?” she prompted uncertainly.

“Well.” Alex chewed on her lower lip, still seeming determined not to look at her. “I was just thinking. Since I guess that was sort of…a trial run of the new Halloween tradition.”

“Kissing under the missing toe,” Astra said, nodding.

“Yeah.” Alex kicked absently at a fallen leaf. “So I guess I was just curious, um. What you thought about it. Like if you thought it’d be a good tradition or not.”

Astra had the distinct feeling the red in her cheeks wasn’t due solely to the chill in the air, and felt herself warm a little as well.

“Well, it did cause a fire,” she mused.

“Oh. Yeah.”

“So it might be a little bit dangerous.”

“Sure.”

“Perhaps if it were done out of range of flammable objects.”

“Right.”

“Then I don’t see why it couldn’t become a successful tradition.”

Alex stopped finally, and looked at her. “And, um…” she began, then took a steadying exhale. So very far from the confident, taunting thing she normally was around Astra. “What if it were done outside of Halloween tradition? Like, on other days, and _without_ a dismembered plastic foot hanging overhead.”

Astra’s heart was picking up pace in a way that was making her need to bite the inside of her cheek simply to center herself from the frenetic energy of the motion. She tried extremely hard to think of something teasing or clever to say to that, something endearing, but only managed out a nod, and a sideways smile, and a murmured, breathy, “Yes,” that would have humiliated her on any other occasion.

“Yeah?” Alex asked, face lighting up.

Astra nodded, heart swelling at that look. “Although,” she said quickly, looking her up and down, “I do insist that you never wear that hideous cougar sweater again.”

“Krueger sweater.”

“Krueger sweater.”

Alex grinned at her. “Well now I’m gonna wear it all the time just to spite you,” she said. That grin turned sly. “But maybe I won’t wear anything else _under_ it, if that’ll make up for it.”

That threw Astra off guard, and she fumbled for words as her human began regaining some of that infuriating cockiness she was so used to.

“I guess I could learn to live with that,” she was finally able to stammer out as images of Alex wearing nothing but underwear and that sweater flooded her mind. “For Halloween, anyway.”

“For Halloween then,” Alex conceded. “Till then…maybe we should get started on perfecting that  new tradition of ours?”

Astra really couldn’t have agreed more, and thankful for the absence of the overhanging dismembered limb, she pulled Alex in, and set about giving her a new reason to call Halloween her favorite holiday.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy early Halloween everybody!


End file.
